Testimonials
IMARES COURSES
IMARES COURSE FORMAT
- lectures
- follow-up discussion sessions
- the language of instructions is English
To complete the MA degree, the student must have a total of 60 Credits – 48 credits from courses and 12 Credits from an MA thesis. The student may choose to distribute these credits over the two semesters. That is, it is possible to take only 18 credits in the first semester and 30 credits in the second.
Additionally, a student may audit as many classes as his or her schedule allows.
NOTE
Courses which have been selected by fewer than 3 students will not be taught during the given semester.
FALL SEMESTER COURSES
Russian Foreign Policy (6 Credits)
This course offers a comparative look at the making and implementation of Russian Foreign Policy after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The course offers a combination of two options. We shall begin with an investigation of the sources of the Russian conduct and analyze Russia’s foreign policy institutions and priorities. We will examine several theoretical models that focus on the impact of different factors on Russian Foreign Policy: type of government, ideology, leadership politics, bureaucratic and interest group politics, the European security system, Russia’s historic borderlands and "empire", and the international economic system. The second part of the course is aimed at close examination of regional aspects of Russian Foreign Policy with particular attention to relations with the West, newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and the Far East.
Russian-American Relations from the Historical Perspective (6 Credits)
The main content of the course is the relations between Russia and the United States in their historical retrospective. The current state of the Russian-American interaction is analyzed in the contexts of diplomatic traditions, cycles of technological transfers and development of the mutual images. Within the course, we will examine every aspect of the relations in the different historical periods and try to found the patterns of the intercourse. At the final discussion, we will attempt to create a policy recommendation based on the knowledge from the course that would be useful for the policy-makers and pundits in both countries.
Empire and Nationalism in Russia and the Soviet Union (6 Credits)
The course will address the mechanisms of imperial growth and patterns of imperial rule, with a special focus on managing cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. We shall discuss mechanisms of transfer from indirect to direct rule and vice versa, mechanisms of nationalization of imperial politics, strategies of acculturation, assimilation and building national identities. Special attention will be paid to the Western borderlands of the Empire. The course also addresses the role of inter-imperial relations and transfers in nationality politics. We shall look at the role of the WWI in mobilization of nationalism in the borderlands, and at the elements of continuity and rupture between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. While looking at the Soviet period we shall focus on the role of ethnicity and nationalism in the early 20’s, politics of korenizatsia and the role of national factors in Stalinist “big leap” of 1930’s.
Violence and Security in Eurasia: Conflicts, Terrorism, Extremism (6 Credits)
The course focuses on the origins of and trends in organized political violence (armed conflicts, terrorism), other forms of collective violence and political extremism in Eurasia, and their security implications. It employs multidisciplinary analytical framework centered on the human security approach. While the main focus is on the post-Soviet space, the course provides an introduction into global trends in armed conflicts and terrorism, the role of radical nationalism, religious extremism and the «new left» and «new right» extremism in armed violence, and the links between political violence and organized crime. The following sections are structured on a case-study/regional basis and explore how these issues manifest themselves in Russia, other states of the Caucasus and in the post-Soviet and the broader Central Asia, including the Afghanistan-Pakistan context. The course addresses the role of both non-state and state actors in armed violence and concludes by a section on conflict management and prevention strategies and discussion of functional and legitimate ways of countering violent extremism.
Russian Orientalism (3 Credits)
1978 saw the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism. That book has done much to shape the way that we think about “the West,” “the East”, and interactions between the two. This course begins with Said’s work and examines its relevance for Russia. How has “the Orient” been constructed as a major “Other” in the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union? Is the concept of Orientalism that Said elaborated primarily on the basis of French and British imperialism applicable to Russia? What comprises the Orient for Russia? What are the instruments of constructing the images of Oriental peoples? What is the role of scholarship in defining “Russia’s Own Orient”? What is the link between the creation of nations and Orientalist concepts? And finally, is there a “Russian soul” of Orientalism? Is the Russian/Soviet case somewhat specific in comparison to colonialist experience of Western Europe?
The course is divided into three parts:
1) Comparative level. European traditions of Oriental Studies (German, English, French cases); the link between scholarship and power and critics of Orientalism (debates around Said’s book).
2) Tsarist Russia’s Orient. discussions on “the Russian soul” of Orientalism; the definition of the Orient in Tsarist Russia through art and science; the Rozen school and “Russia’s Own Orient”.
3) The Soviet case. Soviet nationality politics and the Soviet East; creation of nations and Orientalist approaches; Soviet cinema and production of Orientalist images; institutional and discursive development in Soviet Oriental studies; Soviet Orientalism and the foreign politics; the legacy of Orientalism in post-Soviet Russia.
We will look at various expressions of Russian and Soviet Orientalist experience in art, cinema and scholarship and compare it with the well-studied cases from Western Europe.
Conflict and Cooperation in Eurasia (3 Credits)
The course will analyze and conceptualize sources of international and intra-state conflict and cooperation in and around post-Soviet Eurasia, including the most recent controversy around Ukraine. Its key topics will include U.S.-Russia, EU-Russia, and China-Russia competition and mutual accommodation, strategies of conflict mediation in Eurasia as well as the Eurasian dimension of global arms control. Dilemmas arising from competing institution-building projects in Eurasia championed by the global powers will be considered from the perspectives of both applied analysis and international relations theory. Students will be equipped with an analytical toolkit allowing them to understand and predict the course of conflicts and motives for cooperation among various types of international actors in Eurasia and beyond.
St. Petersburg in Russian Literature (6 Credits)
This course introduces students to the unique phenomenon of the ‘Petersburg text’ (peterburgsky tekst) of Russian culture. It explores the theme of St. Petersburg as presented in Russian literature as well as presentations of ‘St. Petersburg’ literary texts in visual arts, theatre, and film, both Russian and Western. Chronologically the course embraces the period from the early 1810s through the first decade of the 20th century, to its post-history in emigration in the 1920s-1930s. The utmost goal of the course is to give students an idea of what the real city and its numerous images meant for Russian culture and life in general, how literature influenced the real life of people living in the city and coming to it from other places, and how the ‘Petersburg text’ functioned as a cultural intertext influencing other Russian (Moscow and provincial) cultural texts as well as Western ones. We will study different periodicals, literary salons and circles, literary groups (based on both aesthetic and political factors), literary wars and confrontations, and more. The course features works of such Russian writers as Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Blok, Bely and Brodsky.
From Icon to Avant-Garde: A Survey of Russian Art through the Centuries (6 Credits)
This course gives a condensed and comprehensive introduction to more than a thousand-year history of Russian art. From ancient icons to the Naturalist ‘reality effect’, and from normative aesthetics of the Imperial Academy to contemporary experiments, this course allows students to explore different ways of artistic and personal expression. Russian art is unique because of the series of radical changes of visual paradigms it has experienced. We shall unfold this story in a broad social context during lectures and seminars which take place both in the classroom and in the State Russian Museum. Upon completion of this course, the students will gain knowledge of important artifacts and of distinguished Russian masters collected in the Russian Museum, as well as relevant problems in contemporary art. Apart from the in-class lectures, the course features 12 practical seminars in the Russian Museum (or its branches: such as the Marble Palace or the Inzhenerny Castle). Two special occasions are planned, to visit the Restoration Laboratories and the Russian Avant-Garde Storerooms (with the permission of the Museum).
IMARES Workshop Series (No Credits)
Various guest speakers
The IMARES Workshop Series hosts prominent representatives from the fields of academia, business and politics, who deliver open lectures at the European University at St. Petersburg. Our guest speakers share their knowledge and experience by touching upon a variety of topics related to Russian and Eurasian Studies.
The lectures are followed by a Q&A session allowing the IMARES students to engage in further discussion and learn more from the speakers.
Russian Language (6 Credits)
It covers all the basic aspects of the language: pronunciation, grammar, reading, and writing. Classes will focus mainly on everyday conversational language and on developing communication skills. Russian mass media and discussions of hot political and social issues are an important part of the course. Placement tests are run early in September and February to establish prospective students’ proficiency level. At the end of the course a final test may be administered and certificates are issued upon request.
SPRING SEMESTER COURSES
Political Changes in Post-Soviet Eurasia (6 Credits)
The course is focused on the emergence and development of political systems of post-Soviet countries within the context of regime changes and state-building. Starting with the Soviet system and collapse of the Soviet Union as a point of departure, the course traces making and unmaking of major political institutions in these newly-established states by examining the impact of various legacies of the past and the role of domestic and international political and economic actors. Special attention is devoted to patterns of political continuity and changes during the wave of so-called “color revolutions” and their aftermath. We will also discuss more recent developments with regards to current crisis over Ukraine and the role of Russia.
Central Asia States: Making, Breaking and Remaking (6 Credits)
This course examines international, regional and domestic cross-roads for five Former Soviet Union countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Using some references to history we will analyze contemporary situation in these countries and study the dilemmas of peace and conflict, resource politics and regional power balance. In order to do this we will analyze complex political, environmental and social issues involved in contemporary Central Asia in the context of international politics. The readings for the course consist of general international relations and comparative politics literature on the relevant subjects such as state-making and state-breaking, national versus clan loyalties, development of natural resources and environmental problems, Islamic movements and regional migration as well as scholarly works that focus specifically on Central Asia. In addition, we will look into some cross-national comparisons (mostly from Africa) and examine the role and aspirations of external actors in the region (including Russia, United States, China, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan).
Jewish Life under Bolshevik’s Rule: Politics, Ideologies, Representations, 1920s–1930 (3 Credits)
The course describes an ambitious experiment of radical modernization of the Jewish society in Soviet Russia. In 1927—1934 thanks to a large-scale Jewish agricultural colonization the so-called areas of continuous Jewish farming were created which later were reorganized into five Jewish national administrative districts in Southern Ukraine, the Crimea and the Birobidzhan district (since 1934 – the Jewish Autonomous Region – JAR) in the Soviet Far East. In 1938, in accordance with the new Soviet policy of eliminating the administrative autonomies of scattered minorities Jewish national administrative districts were abolished and relocation of Jews both to the Crimea and JAR was suspended. Nevertheless, implementation of the Soviet-Jewish project especially in 1925 – 1930 helped hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews including lishentsy (people with restricted civil rights) willingly adapt to the new Soviet social and economic realities and to receive all the civil and political rights available at that time.
In the 1930s the national Jewish project was part of Stalin’s modernization of the country, but the Soviet regime less eager to accomplish the most urgent economical tasks, than to create a myth about modernization processes in the “Jewish street” through mass-media. To stimulate extensive Jewish mobilization for agricultural colonization of the ‘virgin lands’ in the Soviet Russia the whole project of the Jewish agricultural colonization was extensively propagated by Soviet photojournalists, film industry and ethnographic exhibitions. This extremely important task of social and cultural ‘rehabilitation’ of the Jews in the USSR was required an attractive image of the new Soviet Jewry and of the “Soviet Jewish homeland” in Birobidzhan area.
The course is based on archival documents including visual sources (photos, documentary films, posters etc.) from the depositories of St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, Paris, New York, Jerusalem and Berlin. The lectures will be accompanied by visual presentation in Power Point and documentary films “Jews on the Land” (1926) and “Red Zion” (2006).
Russian Political and Social History (6 Credits)
The first part of this course aims at tracing the evolution of forms of political and social organization preceding the emergence of modern Russia. Special attention will be given to changes in political institutions, relations between rulers and their subjects, local government, social strata, the Russian religious mind, and the origins of patriotism and ethnicity. The second part gives an overview of the development of the state and society in imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Specifically, it aims at providing a comparative perspective on the processes of modernization in Russia and in the rest of Europe. Discussion sessions will concentrate on major debates about the key problems of modern Russian history.
Introduction to Political Economy (3 Credits)
This course offers an introduction to the field of political economy and suggests answers to the question of how politics, policy and markets interact. This question will be examined through a comparative perspective with specific focus on the post-Soviet case. The main goals of the class are to help you develop tools for interpreting and understanding the relationships between politics, policy and economy and to introduce to the major debates on the post-communist reforms in the former Soviet Union. Due to the time constraints, we will only be touching on a few topics in the vast field of political economy. We will begin with an examination of different conceptual approaches to the questions on interaction between state and economy, and review their applications to various issues in international and post-Soviet political economy. Then, we will explore in details the intersection of politics and markets at the macroeconomic level. The following topics will be covered: Economic Growth, Political Business Cycles, Fiscal Federalism, and Innovation Development.
Between Russia and Iran: Geopolitical History of the Caucasus in the 19th-20th Centuries (6 Credits)
This series of lectures and seminars will focus on the recent history and politics of the South Caucasus and Iran. The previous has also been known in Russian sources as the Transcaucasia and includes three UN member states (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) as well as three unrecognized or partially recognized states (Abkhazia, Nagorno Karabakh and South Ossetia). With Russia in the north and Iran as a contemporary 'newsmaker' and former neighbor of the Russian Empire in the south, this region has gone through a number of fascinating transformations throughout its history, some of the modern aspects of which will be examined during the proposed course of studies.
Introduction to Soviet Civilization (3 Credits)
The Communist ideologists claimed that the USSR had succeeded in building up a new type of society that was leading the humankind to its glorious future, and that the “Soviet people” was a new kind of community, to which Soviet citizens belonged regardless their ethnic background. Although these and several other claims were more of a wishful thinking, we can actually consider the Soviet Union as a whole civilization of its own, with its particular relations between the state and the individual, specific social structure and economy, a dominant ideology, spectacular public rituals and the patterns of everyday life that were developed by people in order to cope with shortages of consumer goods. In this course, we will take a look at the history of the Soviet Russia from its birth to its breakdown. We will also dwell upon an array of topics ranging from the Soviet political system to family and gender relations in the Soviet society, from the control that the Communist Party performed over cinema and literature to the way in which several families shared same toilet and kitchen in housing provided to people by the authorities. All these will enable to reconstruct the worldview of an ordinary Soviet citizen.
The Golden Age of Russian Theatre: History, Experiments, Perspectives (6 Credits)
This course is dedicated to the history of Russian theatre from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the more intensive, valuable and fruitful first half of the period. Russian theatre history proper is interlaced with the history of drama, theoretic ideas and artistic-pedagogic methods of the time. Acting, directing, and stage design are examined as different aspects of the single whole. This course features such historic trends as naturalism, symbolism, traditionalism, futurism, constructivism, cubism, Soviet realism, and poetic-metaphoric theatre, as well as such phenomena as “eccentric” or “marionette” acting, the method of the grotesque, and so on. We will examine the main theatric trends and systems, considering the most interesting experiments and most important techniques and ideas, especially those which continue to shape the contemporary theatre of the entire world.
During the semester we'll visit and discuss three live performances of the best St. Petersburg theatres/directors based on the Russian classics.
Intellectual History of Russian Modernism (6 Credits)
This course will follow the history of Russian modernism in the context of the history of ideas. Writings of the symbolists, avant-garde poetry and painting, and literary and artistic criticism will be considered against the background of the contemporaneous science, philosophy, and religious thought. Due to the wide range of intellectual interests of the greatest Russian modernists, an interdisciplinary approach is a constant necessity while analyzing their works. Thus, when interpreting one of the literary masterpieces of the period, Andrej Belyj’s “Petersburg” (1913), it is vital to take into account the author’s numerous non-literary sources, from contemporary studies on psychology to mystical treatises. This course includes, but is not limited to, such topics as the modernists’ quest for ‘the New Man’, the reception of Richard Wagner’s ‘Total Work of Art’ in Russia, the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyev and Pavel Florensky, the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche’s works in Russia, the ‘Mystical Mathematics’ of Velimir Khlebnikov and Kazimir Malevich, as well as theories of the Russian Formalists.
IMARES Workshop Series (No Credits)
Various guest speakers
The IMARES Workshop Series hosts prominent representatives from the fields of academia, business, and politics, who deliver open lectures at the European University at St. Petersburg. Our guest speakers share their knowledge and experience by touching upon a variety of topics related to Russian and Eurasian Studies.
The lectures are followed by a Q&A session allowing the IMARES students to engage in further discussion and learn more from the speakers.
Russian Language (6 Credits)
It covers all the basic aspects of the language: pronunciation, grammar, reading, and writing. Classes will focus mainly on everyday conversational language and on developing communication skills. Russian mass media and discussions of hot political and social issues are an important part of the course. Placement tests are run early in September and February to establish prospective students’ proficiency level. At the end of the course a final test may be administered and certificates are issued upon request.
